We desperately need more ops in #ubuntu.

[Aaron Rainbolt]

Responding to a question and a point brought up:

On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 8:15 AM Simon Quigley <simon at tsimonq2.net> wrote:
<snip>
> > In my personal opinion, if more than 15% of events that needed operator
> > intervention go unhandled, that likely means we need more active operators.
> > According to my study, the percentage of missed events is over double that. I
> > therefore conclude that we desperately need more ops in #ubuntu, and would like
> > for the IRC operator team to consider having a vote for additional IRC operators
> > in that channel.
>
> Not disagreeing, but where did you come up with 15%? Where exactly should we
> draw the line here, and why?

It was slightly arbitrary, but was based on my own prior experience as
a Matrix mod in #support:ubuntu.com. I don't expect any ops team to
catch 100% of everything that goes wrong, or even 100% of all the
reported things that go wrong. But to a degree, I would expect the
percentage of missed events to go down as the number of ops increases
(assuming said ops are careful, responsible, and follow all
appropriate guidelines and codes of conduct). To me it seemed
reasonable to say that missing about one out of six events was
more-or-less normal. I do recognize that this was somewhat arbitrary,
and it's why I expressed it as my opinion. Others may think that it's
normal to miss more events than that, or they may think that missing
one out of six is missing too many, but I think in any event it can be
seen why I think things are getting missed too often now.

To respond to the note about me "just wanting to be an IRC operator",
I don't know if the IRC team actually believes that's what is
happening here, and didn't get that feeling from Melissa's response.
It is true that I added myself as a proposed member of the #ubuntu
operator team, following the process laid out at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IRC/IrcTeam/OperatorRequirements, after
reviewing all of the reading material listed there (except for the
Leadership Code of Conduct, which seems to give me a 404 error trying
to access it - I did put some effort into finding out where it went,
and intend to read it as soon as I can find it or find someone who
knows where it is). However, this isn't because I just "want to be an
IRC operator". I far more enjoy helping people with their computer
problems, and I'm happy to wait for others who have power to clean
things up when they go awry. But all too often I don't see that
happening, and it's left me with some very memorable and highly
negative experiences as a result. I don't at all blame the operator
team for this - we have busy lives. I don't expect the ops to be
watching the channel like a hawk around the clock. I just also would
like to see less incidents go unhandled. I have experience moderating
multiple Internet forums (both a fairly active subreddit and the
Ubuntu Support room on Matrix, which is somewhat active and gets spam
every so often), and so far no one has complained that my moderation
is too strict. I had one friend tell me it was too lenient once :P
Since I see a problem, and have some of the skills needed to assist
with it, I volunteered to help. I don't mind being turned down, and
will still be happy to help people in #ubuntu even if that happens.

Thanks for your time and consideration.
Aaron